La quiete dopo la tempesta (The calm after the storm)

Odo augelli fare festa… The past weeks have been emotionally and logistically hectic. First, the decision on whether to accept to move to India - thus leaving our friends, our jobs, our hardly conquered routine in DC, etc. Then, the run against time to organize our move: find someone to lease our apartment, someone to take care of the Vespa, update the vaccinations, get the visas, get the tickets, cancel our subscriptions, pay our bills, finalize our deliverables, decide what to bring and what not, prepare our luggages, take leave from our friends and colleagues…

In short, a true storm.

But as always - after the rain, the clearness comes. And so, after several frantic weeks, now that the decision is taken, the luggages prepared, friends have been said good-bye, etc. I finally feel in peace. And look forward to being on the plane to sleep 20 hours in a row, before starting this new chapter of our lives...

Happy birthday ‘little’ Davide!

Tanti auguri Davidino!

Eveline again

A few years ago, La Repubblica, one of the major Italian newspapers, launched an on-line forum on its website: “What is the book that changed your life?”. The participants to this forum were given 500 words to indicate the book they considered it changed their life, and to explain why.

In just a few days, several thousands of people participated to the forum, inducing a couple of journalists to write an article about it (http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/myboo/myboo/myboo.html?ref=search, and http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/myboo/librivita/librivita.html?ref=search). Answers ranged from ‘no book changes your life’ to ‘every book changes a bit your life’. And within these two opposite positions, the forum offered an interesting portrait of the titles and the authors that most influenced the Italians in the past 20-30 years.

But besides the light entertainment produced by reading others’ answers and finding back titles of books I loved (or of books I wish I had read but I didn’t), this forum deeply provoked me with its fundamental question: what was the book that changed ‘my’ life? I had never thought about it…

It’s not an easy answer. The book that changed your life is not necessarily the book that you liked the most. You need to find out whether there is a book that produced a change in your life (could be anything: a choice, the revelation or the understanding of something, etc.) - and consider that change ‘the’ change in your life. Or, on the other way round, you need to identify the big changes in your life, and find out whether they have been somehow inspired by the reading of a book…

It took me about two days, but I finally found it out: “Eveline”, one of the tales of ‘The Dubliners’, by James Joyce (http://hell.pl/agnus/anglistyka/Literatura/James%20Joyce%20-%20Eveline.pdf).

Eveline is the story of a young woman in the Dublin of the beginning of 1900. She leads a dreary and gloomy life: not wealthy, working hard to take care of the two young brothers, dominated by her violent father. She suddenly has the opportunity to change her life when Frank, the man she is courted with, proposes her to follow him in Argentina, where he is about to emigrate. However, though initially kindled by the perspective of escaping from her present life, Eveline is finally unable to leave, stuck by the fear of leaving the known - even if miserable - for the unknown…

From the first time I read this tale, Eveline became the model of how I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want the fear for the new and the unknown (which everyone feels) could prevent me from the opportunities that the new and the unknown bring along. And every time I had to take a decision in which I had to weight the two - the uncertainty full of risks (but also opportunities) of the new vs the sense of comfort and security of the known - I thought of Eveline, hold my breath, and jumped into the unknown…

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(Robert Frost)

28 September

Tanti auguri, happy birthday, खुशी जन्मदिन (in hindi...)

10 reasons why we are excited about going to India

(1) Because we have never been to India (M&M’s)

(2) Because after almost five years at head-quarters, it was a while we were considering to get back to the field (M&M’s)

(3) Because the Himalayas are just two hours and half away… (Matteo)

(4) Because I love the Indian accent (Mathilde)

(5) Because I look forward to eating Indian every day (Mathilde)

(6) Because we already have a long list of people who will come to visit us (M&M’s)

(7) Because changes are opportunities for growth (M&M’s)

(8) Because after so much Africa, it was time to discover a new continent… (M&M’s)

(9) Because India is not too far from Nepal and Bhutan (Matteo), and from Thailand and the Maldives (Mathilde)

(10)Because, as Alex said, India is the ‘mother land’, and everybody needs to visit it at least once in his/her life (M&M’s)

How we are getting prepared to India

We realized our last posts were a bit nostalgic, and that we needed to cheer our readers up. It’s true, we have somehow, at the bottom of our hearts, the feeling of undertaking a non-return path. Who really knows what will happen and where we will we be in one year. In our mind Kathmandu is as likely as DC… At the same time, we are getting more and more excited about the perspective of this new adventure (a new country, a new culture, new people and hopefully new friends...) - and we are getting prepared to it.

We realized we knew very little about India. So, from where to begin with? Some people get to know everything about the economics and the politics of the country they are moving to. Some the history. Some read the literature. Some the travel guides. Some watch movies, and some listen to the music.

We, more simply, entered the words “Indian accent” in a search engine. And these are the results…

- How to say ‘hello’ in Indian (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQqzROAZZQ0)
- Indian accent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw6RgIf6epQ&feature=related)
- Kids’ education (http://www.youtube.com/user/arommendahl?blend=1&ob=4)
- […]

Laugh with us, and come to visit us !

10 reasons why we will be missing DC…

(1) Because, after Milan and Paris, this is the city where we spent most of our lives - and we start feeling as it was becoming our home…

(2) Because we loved the almost overbearing presence of green and nature in DC - and the almost infinite possibilities of outdoor activities just outside DC…

(3) Because we both have a job that we like - and we know this is a combination that is not always easy to get…

(4) Because, despite the 12 hours spent at Ikea, arguing on every piece of the furniture, we furnished our flat the way we like - and we think it well reflects the way we are…

(5) Because we feel we haven’t yet finished discovering America…

(6) Because I’ll be missing my daily bike ride to the office along the Potomac... (Mathilde)

(7) Because I like the international environment that DC offers (Matteo)

(8) Because after years of changes, moves, resettlements, we finally found a routine here…

(9) Because cows are not holy here, and I can have a hamburger as those served at the Diner’s whenever I want… (Matteo)

(10)Because your home is where you have your friends - and we will be missing our friends!

Farewells continue...

Another farewell. Yesterday we hosted our own farewell party. Again, a mix of different feelings: cheerfulness for being once more all together, and melancholy for knowing it will likely be one of the last time we are all together…

Thank-you to all our friends to have come to tell us good-bye - this was a wonderful present. We wait you all in India; take advantage of us: come and visit us…

Farewells begin...

As the departure date approaches, the number of farewell parties, drinks, lunches and dinners exponentially increases.

Yesterday we were invited for dinner at Padma and Alex' (the prospective opera singer and the… well, it is difficult to frame Padma, as any definition would not make her justice). Healthy dinner, pleasent evening. We will miss these friends - so different from us and yet so complementary - very very much.

Today it was the turn of my farewell lunch with my colleagues from TerrAfrica. Again, a very moving moment…

When I moved to the Bank a few years ago, I was somehow worried to enter in an institution of hyper-competitive people, sharks, people ‘better-not-to-trust too much’ or ‘better-not-to-open-up too much with’ because they could knife you in your back…. Since my first day in the office, since the first persons I met (Steve in the lobby, Beula in front of Christophe’s office, Ayala in the “dangeoun-basement”), I realized how groundless were my fears. My colleagues in the TerrAfrica team soon became among my best friends here in DC, my reference points, someone I felt I could always count on.

And now that the date of the departure approaches, while the excitement for the new adventure increases, the sadness for loosing them increases in equal amount. I like to think to this experience as a long (actually very long) mission, after which I will find back all of them, as nothing has changed, as nothing has moved. However, I learnt how precarious and unstable are the lives of us ‘development professionals’... Change seems to be the driving force among us. So what we leave today, most likely won’t be found back tomorrow.

With this irrational but well clear feeling I get closer to our departure date - feeling (and fearing) that I won’t meet some of these people with whom I shared so much in the past years again.

So be it India...

After weeks of meditation, hesitation, humming and hawing, we have finally made our decision... and so be it India!

Attenziò, concentraziò, ritmo e… vitalitá!

Attenziò. Concentraziò. Ritmo e... vitalitá... Mentre si va via via attenuando l’energia accumulata durante il mio blitz aquilano per partecipare al matrimonio di Federico e Germana, rimangono ancora vivissimi i ricordi e le sensazioni di quella giornata.

É stato bello rivedere amici che ormai vedo sempre piú raramente ma a cui mi sento ancora cosí legato. Mi sono sentito orgoglioso di essere riuscito ad essere presente in un giorno cosí importante della vita di Federico. E per una giornata mi sono sentito come in una dimensione diversa, ubriacato dall’energia di questo evento... Non ho quasi sentito il jet-leg del viaggio dagli Stati Uniti. Non mi é pesato il Milano-Roma-L’Aquila-Roma-Milano in neanche 24 ore, il ballare fino alle tre di notte, il rientrare a Roma alle cinque di mattina, il dormire due ore in un bed&breakfast prima di riprendere un treno per Milano...

Mi sono sentito come in una bolla, vivendo le emozioni con passione adolescenziale, come se ci fosse ancora tutto il 'midollo della vita da succhiare', come se non ci fosse ieri, come se non ci fosse domani...

É impossibile riprodurre a parole l’atmosfera di quella sera. Forse i 30 secondi di questo video(*) potranno in qualche modo rievocarla tra coloro che c’erano. O forse potrá il ritornello di questa canzone dei Bandabardó: “Attenziò. Concentraziò. Ritmo e...Vitalità! Devo dare di gas. Voglio energia. Metto carbone e follia. Se mi rilasso, collasso: mi manca l'aria. E l'allegria. Perciò... Attenzió...” (**)

(*) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd7oG6SpKNA
(**) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKxL24bNyrg

Ed ecco qui anche le foto del matrimonio di Fe & Germana...

And here there are Federico & Germana’s wedding pictures (check: http://picasaweb.google.com/matteo.marchisio)

Renato & Carito's wedding pictures on-line (finally!)

Renato and Carito's wedding pictures have been posted at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mmmarchisio

Vote your favourite one!

Labour Day brings the Summer away

The American calendar is beaten by different festivities and holidays. So, Thanksgiving, the last Thursday of November, brings families together in America as much as Christmas in Europe. Martin Luther King’s Day, the third Monday of January, is an opportunity for a ‘skiing’ week-end. The President Day (or Washington’s Birthday), on the third Monday of February, is when newly elected presidents take office (and when many stores, especially car dealers, hold sales). Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, can be compared to the Italian ‘April 25th’: an opportunity for a day in the country-side. Independence Day, on July 4th, marks de facto the beginning of summer, and Labour Day, the first Monday of September, marks on the other hand the end of it. Public swimming-pools close, the entitlement to ‘causal’ dressing-code in offices ends, and beginning from Tuesday, flip-flop are banned and ties become compulsory again…

Consistent with American traditions, we decided to spend our Labour-Day week-end as American families do: on the beach for the last swim of the year. We drove to Ocean City NJ, three-hour and half from DC, to join Clémence, Christophe, Clothilde, Rémi, Magdelone, and Pierre-Alois + their kids. Despite the very American occasion, the week-end ended-up being very ‘French’, i.e. sit for hours at the dining table with excellent food!

The week-end was also a deep immersion into babies’ business. Out of the four couples, we were the only one without kids (counting those in pipeline as well…). Well, let's say an 'interesting' experience to test our paternal or maternal desire…

Pictures of the week-end have been posted on: http://picasaweb.google.com/mmmarchisio

E anche Federico & Germana si sono sposati...

Pictures, videos, and stories will be posted in the coming days...

Another plane...

Another taxi-ride to the airport, another check-in, another plane... Matteo is leaving to Italy (L'Aquila) to attend Federico and Germana's wedding (yes, another wedding as well!). Mathilde remained in DC to guard the property.

Below, a photo from an old inventory. Title: "Before our weddings - when we were young and handsome (and in good shape!)". This is our baseline: we check in five years to see how life (marriage?) will have changed us...

Cartagena de Indias

Cartagena has definitively its charm. Well maintained colonial houses, perfectly preserved churches and palaces, imposing stone-walls surrounding the town. But also fancy restaurants, trendy cafes, stylish boutiques…

However, as a beautiful woman who rejoices at her beauty, so we found Cartagena a bit too “self-aware” of its charm…

Cartagena is definitively a jewel, and we would certainly recommend visiting it. But after five days of silence, solitude, and sublime beauty of nature, we felt a bit out of place here…

Casa Barlovento

We can’t conclude the account of our stay in El Parque Tayrona without describing the posada where we slept first: casa Barlovento.

Casa Barlovento is a private home, now converted in posada, with three open-air rooms (meaning without walls or windows) just on a deck above (literally ‘above’) the sea. Sleeping there is an experience, with the ocean breeze as blanket, and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach just under your mattress as soundtrack.

We have slept in many hotels, hostels, bad-and-breakfasts, cheap, expensive, breakfast included, breakfast excluded, silk blankets, bring-your-own blankets, bathroom inside, bathroom outside, no bathroom at all, etc. around the world. But few - if none - had the charm of this posada…

(Check a short video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q5cnem48y8)

El Parque Tayrona

White, blue and green. This is El Parque Tayrona.

White as its sandy beaches. Blue as the waters of the Caribbean Sea that washes its coast. And green as the lush rainforest that from the beaches of the Park climbs up the steep slopes of la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Luxurious nature is dominant here, and the only thing you have to do here is to enjoy it. And we did.

Not far from the coast, hidden in the tropical jungle on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, there are the ruins of one of the settlements of the Tayrona people, the pre-Colombian indigenous community who used to live in this region centuries ago: El Pueblito.

El Pueblito, built around 450 BC and abandoned around the year 1600 after the Tayrona were decimated by the Spaniards, is considered to have been one of the Tayrona’s major settlements. Unfortunately not much of the ancient town has remained, apart from some terraces, stone-paths, and house basements. However, the journey to this ‘lost’ city is really worthwhile...

From the beaches of the Park, a trail brings you uphill in the heart of the jungle following one of the ancient routes of the Tayronas. Made of stones, some of which massive, this path is believed to be part of an extensive network of stone-slab trails that were used to link about 300 Tayrona settlements scattered over the Sierra.

The path is indeed scenic, offering some beautiful scenery of the tropical forest, and breathtaking views of the ocean behind you. But, above all...

Walking on this stone-paved road - in the middle of the jungle - towards the ruins of a lost city - that belonged to an ancient civilization - now disappeared, you really have the feeling of being Indiana Jones in "the Raiders of the Lost Ark" (or Laura Croft in "Tomb Raider", it depends). You would in fact cautiously walk carefully looking around expecting at any moment the assault of fierce indigenous protecting their territory and their treasures…

The Wayuus

Used to the often annoying presence of individuals who want to sell you everything during our trips, we appreciated the discreet presence of the Wayuu people in the Guajira.

Known to be dangerous, hot-tempered, smugglers, as people ‘better not to be met’, the Wayuus are on the contrary gentle, hospitable, and extremely pleasant to talk with.

(Special thanks to Ramona, our travel-mate in this trip to the Guajira, for sharing her pictures…)

M&M in Colombia: la Guajira

Since my first trip to Colombia in 1999, I always desired visiting la Guajira, the thin peninsula that from Colombia dives into the Caribbean Sea.

It was perhaps because of the suggestive image of the desert meeting the ocean. Perhaps because of the romantic idea of reaching the continent’s northernmost point - a sort of South American ‘North Cape’. Or perhaps because of the legends surrounding the feared Wayuu, the fiercely indigenous people living in the Region, known for living by their own rules, indifferent to the Colombian or Venezuela’s administrative borders and laws…

After about 10 years, I finally fulfilled this old dream.

The trip took us in three days from Riohacha, the capital of the region and gateway to the wild North-East, to Punta Galina, the spectacular tip of the continent, passing through the salt mines of Manaure, the remote Wayuu fishing village of Cabo de la Vela, the rocky cliffs of Ojo del Agua and Pilon de Azucar, and Playa Taroa, where the ochre dunes of the Guajira desert collide with the turquoise waves of the Caribbean ocean.

Our only companions were the wind and the sun during the day, and the starry skies during night. The prevailing feelings during these three days were peace, solitude and a sense of space - which unfortunately our pictures could not capture and reproduce (*).

(*) But have a look at these two short videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOtAHWHwv9s (Playa Taroa), and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0epny1eNSAs (the view in front of the Wayuu's village)

We left la Guajira aware to have enjoyed a still virgin, almost untouched corner of the world. But with an inconvenient question: how will this place look like in ten years from now?

This place remained unknown to global tourism until very very recently. However, since it has appeared on the June 09 edition of the Lonely Planet, more tourists have come in the past two months than in the whole previous year. It is not an ‘easy’ destination: there are no infrastructures (we slept in hammocks hosted by the local families and showered with bucks of water), and getting there is far from being easy (there are no roads and no means of transports).

But still, without being rhetorical or naïf, here it comes the inconvenient question: what will the future of this place be? …

Matteo & Mathilde are back from Colombia

Matteo and Mathilde are back from Colombia with tons of pictures and stories.

Pictures are available at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mmmarchisio - vote your favorite one!

Stories will be posted in the coming days.

Queridos Renato y Carito...

Renato y Carito,

Es un honor para mí compartir con ustedes, con sus familias, con sus amigos, este día especial.

Es un honor porque puedo decir haber sido testigo de sus historia, de cómo su amor nació, y como se consolidó.

¿Cómo conocí a Renato? Bueno, acababa de llegar a Washington, no conocía a nadie, necesitaba socializar, y, de pronto, recibí un email que me invitaba a jugar a volleyball. No sabía bien qué hacer, pero tan solo cinco minutos después recibí otro email de “rnardello” que decía: “He visto tu nombre en la lista de directionnes de correo; ¿eres italiano? Hola, me llamo Renato…”

Y así empezó nuestra amistad. Una buena amistad, que tenía su ápice en las que llamábamos “nuestras noches ‘gay’”, durante las cuales normalmente nos salíamos a cenar, y hablábamos de todos: la vida, el trabajo, las mujeres…

Así nació y se consolidó nuestra amistad. En Renato encontré en verdad más que un amigo: mi hermano mayor.

Nuestras noches ‘gays’ eran divertidas, pero después de unos meses, faltaba algo… bueno (obviamente) ¡las mujeres!

Y casualmente (o no) fue el mismo volley que nos hice encontrar que nos llevó a Carito.

Carito era sin duda la más hermosa de nuestro grupo de volley. Hermosa, si, pero inalcanzable, y ganar su corazón era, en verdad, una impresa casi imposible.

Y bueno, tenemos que dar crédito a Renato que con su perseverancia más china que italiana, consiguió conquistar el corazón de Carito.

Y ahora que estoy aquí de testigo de su amor, buscaba unas palabras para brindar a sus vida juntos.

Y espero que mi amigo Jorge (Caledon) me perdone si me apropio de las palabras de una de sus canciones, la canción que Renato prefiere, para brindar por Renato y Carito.

¿Qué es entonces una vida junta? Es ‘tener siempre alguien que nos quiere, siempre alguien que nos cuida’.

Brindemos entonces por la vida juntos de Renato y Carito: ¡que la quieran, que se quieran!

Renato y Carito se casaron!

Les M&M’s go to… Colombia (!!!)

… to attend Renato & Carito’s wedding.

Bogotá, Colombia’s vibrant capital, over the week-end: el Museo del Oro, la Candelaria, la salsa, el merengue… Then to the coast: la Guajira: the thin peninsula at the border with Venezuela, a sort of Colombian far west: massive dunes, wind, solitude, sea… and bandits! El Parque Tayrona: a stretch of Caribbean coast with white sand beaches and “lost cities” in the middle of the jungle. And finally, Cartagena, an old Spanish colonial city, now one of Unesco’s world heritages.

Matteo and Mathilde will be back on-line on Aug. 23, with plenty of pictures to show and stories to tell.

And with the answer to the quiz: what have les M&M’s decided to do, India or not India? (Do keep on participating to our competition, see previous post)

Guess what les M&M's have decided...

Les M&M's have made their mind. Participate to our quiz:

(1) guess what - in your opinion - they have decided,
(2) post your best guess under "comments",
(3) check in a couple of days the correct answer and see how well you know them.

The choice will be revealed soon...

It has (finally) arrived!

It took a while. Several consultations with friends and IT gurus (better a PC or a Mac? better a 2.1GHz 800MHz FSB or a 2.0GHz 1600MHz FSB processor? better a 320GB 7200RPM or a 500GB 5400RPM hard-drive? better more RAM or more memory???). And then several nights spent on internet learning on technical details, comparing different models and brands, reading customers' reviews, searching for special offers... Then the final choice and the long wait: six business days for custumizing it, five business days for shipping it (purchased in the US, shipped from China)...

But finally, yesterday evening, here it was, waiting for me at the reception, my new 'baby' (even if Mathilde prohibited me to call it like this), my new companion, my new toy, which replaces my old Acer (contingent 2003) who well served for almost six years - particularly during the times at LSE, but that with his 19GB memory has sadly become obsolete, passed by faster and more “spacious” models…

Sad is life. Au revoir Acer Aspire 1600, and welcome HP Pavillion!

Mission accomplished!

Mathilde is back, after having accomplished her mission (finding the lost gorillas...)

While I am debating on whether to go to India or not, I am wondering (if these are Mathilde's missions) whether I should not apply to CI and stay in DC instead!

The storm is approaching...

One week to give an answer... the storm is approaching...